


Those Who Choose

by Lomonaaeren



Series: From Samhain to the Solstice [24]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Consensual Infidelity, Established Relationship, F/F, Harry Potter Epilogue Compliant, M/M, Open Marriage, Past Astoria Greengrass/Draco Malfoy, Past Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-19 22:49:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17010648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: Harry and Ginny were comfortable in their largely platonic marriage; they both had discreet lovers, while their children had stability, and the public had the fairy-tale marriage they wanted. But Draco and Luna won’t be content to stay on the sidelines forever, and Harry and Ginny haven’t been as discreet as they thought they were. The time for a choosing is coming faster and faster.





	Those Who Choose

**Author's Note:**

> Another of my “From Samhain to the Solstice” fics, for a prompt by Occupational Haz about Draco and Luna being the married Harry and Ginny’s lovers and pressing for public acknowledgment.

****“Another one?”

Ginny glanced up from the paper and nodded, her mouth pulled into a frown, then turned the paper so he could see.

Harry swore softly as he looked at the photograph of Draco standing next to him in the Atrium at the Ministry. It _should_ have been safe; it was a public place, which meant that he and Draco weren’t making silly faces at each other. They both knew the rules. But there was enough softness in Draco’s face, enough gentleness in the way that Harry’s hand rested on Draco’s shoulder, that the article had fuel for its rumors.

“What about you and Luna?” Harry asked, putting the paper down.

Ginny shook her head. “Nothing since last week.”

Harry looked around the kitchen of their home, his parents’ rebuilt house in Godric’s Hollow, and sighed. It was a perfectly ordinary room for a wizarding household, with a wide fireplace, dishes washing gently back and forth in the sink, pictures of their children waving from the walls, and a snoring Kneazle kitten in the corner. He and Ginny had done well, he thought, at giving their children a normal life by the standards of the world they lived in.

When their marriage hadn’t turned out to work as well as they thought it would, he and Ginny had even done well at staying married while they sought satisfaction elsewhere. Harry had thought it would all work out.

It seemed he’d been wrong, again.

He turned around to face Ginny, his best friend. He still loved Ron and Hermione, but he didn’t spend nearly as much time with them, what with Ron busy with the Wheezes and Hermione getting nearer and nearer to becoming Minister. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t think we can have any idea until we ask Luna and Draco.”

Harry raised his eyebrows. “That’s true, but you’re still sitting there with this face that makes you look as though someone punched you. What else happened, Gin?”

Ginny sighed and tucked a piece of her flyaway hair behind her ear. “Luna spoke to me this weekend. She said that she’s tired of being kept on the sidelines. Then she started talking about the Nargles leading her astray, but that’s just Luna.”

Harry felt his gut clench. “Draco said something like that to me the other day. I thought it was just bluffing, but—he did get a divorce from Astoria last year. I never thought he actually would.”

Ginny turned her head and stared at him. “Did he do it for you?”

“That’s just the thing. He never said one way or the other. But two years ago he was also telling me he would never get a divorce, that he and Astoria had their own arrangement and it worked just fine for them and Scorpius needed both his parents in his life.” Harry stared at his hands. “The way that he spoke…I thought he just got tired of living a confined life.”

“If he is, then Luna is tired of the same thing.” Ginny stood up and came over to hug him. “If that’s true, what are we going to _do_? I don’t want to lose them, but the public reaction…”

“I know,” Harry said softly. They would have got divorced long ago if not for the way that the public eagerly stared at them and waited for them to do just that. First they’d thought they were in love. Then, by the time Ginny was pregnant with Albus, it had become about not wanting to give in to everyone who predicted the marriage between a “poor gold-digger” and “the most desirable man in the world” would fail. And then they’d had Lily, and their children were the most important people in the world to them.

Harry had been content. Scorpius had been the most important person in the world to Draco, too. And Luna, although she’d never married Rolf Scamander, the father of her twin sons, had also never acted as though she’d taken another lover.

Now, things would have to change. It would be less wrenching than before, given that the children were all at Hogwarts most of the year now and James was actually a sixth-year.

But Harry still had no idea what came next.

*

“Sorry I’m late, Luna.”

Luna didn’t reply. That made Ginny turn around from shaking snow off her cloak. Luna always had something to say, even if it was a dreamy defense of a creature no one had ever heard of.

But now Luna stood in the middle of her dining room, her arms folded and her head bowed a little. She wasn’t hiding her face. She was looking at Ginny with the most direct and uncompromising look Ginny had ever seen her give.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Luna whispered.

Ginny Vanished the snow from the floor and slowly hung her cloak up on the peg. She sometimes wondered if Lorcan and Lysander had ever pondered why Luna had four cloak-pegs in her entrance. But she put those thoughts aside. Concentrating too much on the children wouldn’t help with this conversation.

“What, love?”

“If I’m your love, then why are you married to someone else?”

“For the children,” Ginny said, but the words sounded dusty in her mouth. “You—you know that the children would get teased at Hogwarts if it came out that their parents were divorced—”

“The Malfoys got divorced last year, and somehow Scorpius survived.”

“But he _was_ teased,” Ginny said swiftly. “Our Al is in Slytherin with him, and saw that.”

Luna glanced at her. Her eyes were deep and bright and led like tunnels back into her head. Ginny swallowed. The only other time she had ever seen Luna look like that, she had been discussing her mother’s death.

“And of course, teasing matters more than hearts, or happiness, or the ability to live openly and honestly,” Luna whispered. “Of course the children’s social lives are more important than our own.”

“They—needed stability—”

“Do you think Lorcan and Lysander had unstable lives because they lived with me and I had an amicable relationship with their father instead of a marriage?”

“No. No. Of course not.” Ginny felt as though she stood on solid stone that someone had Transfigured into mud. “I only think—I think that maybe—it’s so hard to know what’s right to do—”

“I think what’s _right_ is what your lover is asking you to do, instead of worrying about what the public will think, or whether someone might sneer at your children. You can’t control if someone sneers at your children anyway, and it could always be about something else.” Luna stood tall for a second, then nodded and turned away. “When you want to live openly and honestly with me in the world, Ginny, then come back. But not until then.”

Ginny swallowed. She’d looked forward to her evening with Luna all week. It was exhausting to go to the Burrow with Harry and pretend to be deliriously in love, the way her mum wanted.

Of course, that was the exact thing that she couldn’t say to Luna right now.

She nodded to her, a gesture Luna didn’t return, and then turned and slipped out the door.

*

“Draco?”

Harry’s voice echoed and died away in Malfoy Manor. He moved a few steps inside, staring around. Usually, there were lit torches to greet him, or at least a house-elf, bowing and leading him to Draco.

Now, the Manor felt almost haunted enough for Harry to remember the crowding memories of the war that he could usually chase away when he was here with Draco. Harry walked through the dark corridors, and finally saw a gleam of firelight spilling out from under a closed door up ahead. He quickened his steps.

The door seemed to stick for a second before he opened it, but many things in the Manor were old enough that it didn’t really matter. Harry walked into the firelight, and halted the instant he caught sight of Draco.

“Draco? Are you… _drunk_?”

Draco glanced up at him. There was a glass of Firewhisky next to his hand, but Harry had never seen him _really_ drunk. Now his shirt was unbuttoned the way that it was most of the time only when they made love, and there was a stain across his robes where the drink had spilled.

Draco shrugged and sipped from the glass. When he lowered it, he said, “What does it matter? I might as well get drunk by myself, since my _lover_ , the one I sacrificed my marriage for, is huddled at home with his wife.”

“It’s not that simple,” Harry began.

“Yes, it fucking is, sometimes,” Draco said, and Harry jumped, because another thing Draco never did was swear. Draco put the Firewhisky down on the table and turned around, slinging his legs over the chair arm. “You want to give your children stability? No, you want to give them _protection_. You want to hold them away from the world and say the world can never do anything to hurt them. No matter who else has to suffer for them.”

“My children are the most important people in my life.”

“And Scorpius is in mine. Doesn’t mean you can’t have different kinds of important people.” Draco was speaking carefully, but that was the only sign of the effect the Firewhisky was having on him. Harry could do nothing but stand and listen. “Doesn’t mean that divorce is going to destroy their world.”

“What the _Prophet_ would say…”

“They’re saying it now, about your wife and Lovegood. You can’t stop the flood of revelations. But you can be _honest_ for once and say that you’re mine and your wife is Lovegood’s. Do you want to do that, or not?”

Harry looked away. The direct gaze of Draco’s eyes made him want to squirm, small and ashamed. But he and Ginny really had made their decision with the belief that protecting their children was the most important thing they could do, so he tried one more time.

“I know divorce didn’t matter that much to Scorpius, but I’m famous, Ginny is internationally known, our children…”

“They put up with a lot just having you for a father and her for a mother. They’ll bear this.”

Harry breathed out slowly. “Or you’ll leave me, right?”

“I’ve given up too much for you already. If you can’t give me something for once besides a hasty night here and there, then hell yes, I’m going out there to find someone who _will_.”

*

“What can we do?”

Ginny reached out and took Harry’s hand. He gave her a desperate glance. Ginny squeezed his fingers. _He knows as well as I do what the only decision is that we can make. We tried to protect our children, but the_ Prophet _still found out our secrets._

_And we used to say that we would divorce when I retired from Quidditch. Then we said it would be when James went to Hogwarts. Then when Al did. Then when it was Lily. We just keep pushing it back further and further, and it’s not because we love each other and want to stay married. We’re just afraid. And we got comfortable with the way things were, and we didn’t want to change them._

“We can give Malfoy and Luna what they asked for,” Ginny said quietly. “We can show our children that love does matter, and our love is true.”

Harry shot her a quick glance. “Leave—this?”

Ginny knew how to phrase it in a way that would make him pay attention. “Leave skulking,” she said. “Leave looking around carefully because we might have to Apparate if we see someone we know. Leave timing how many evenings we spend with them, just in case someone comes over and knocks on our doors when we’re not here, and starts suspecting something.” For a moment, her hands clenched. Harry watched her warily.

“Do you really want to stay like this forever? You’ve told me more than once that you want a relationship with Draco.”

Harry nodded silently.

“This is your chance to have it.”

Harry looked down, then back up at her. “I was afraid,” he said finally. “And I thought Draco would never leave Astoria anyway, so I wouldn’t have to do anything to change things, either. You—didn’t ask for anything after we worked out our bargain. I got used to that. Now Draco’s asking for something, and I was ready to run in fear, even though the request is so reasonable.”

Ginny nodded encouragingly. “We can do this, Harry. It’s going to be a change, sure, but we can do it.”

“We can.” Harry nodded in determination and walked over to hug her. It felt like the final time, but that wasn’t a bad thing. “Are we going to call the _Prophet_ , or what?”

Ginny shook her head. “We need to tell our lovers and our children first. Then we’re going to file the papers. Then we’ll answer questions as they come up. No interviews unless we all agree to it.”

“Right,” Harry said, and some essential fear seemed to have melted from his face. He was smiling. Ginny found she could do the same.

*

“I can’t believe this, Dad. You’re _fucking_ Scorp’s dad?”

Harry rolled his eyes, wincing a little. James’s vocabulary had got considerably worse ever since he’d joined the Gryffindor Quidditch team in fifth year. “Yes, James. We’ve been lovers a long time. Your mother and I mutually agreed to that. We were going to wait until you were out of school, but—it’s time.”

“I can’t believe this. I just can’t _believe_ this.”

“It’s not so hard to believe,” said Lily, from behind James. Then she moved forwards and put her head into the flames of the Headmistress’s Floo. Behind her, Harry could hear Minerva berating James for his language, and had to smile a little. Some things really didn’t change. “Hullo, Dad. I’m not surprised to hear about you and Mum.”

Harry stiffened a bit. That wasn’t something he and Ginny had wanted. “You suspected something?”

Lily nodded, her red hair bouncing around her shoulders. “You were pretty careful, but a couple times I heard you discussing things. And, well, you never really acted like Grandmama and Grandpapa did, or even like Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione.”

“I’m not that surprised, either,” Al said, crouching down beside Lily so that his head and the corner of his Slytherin tie appeared. “I think it would have been better to tell us earlier, but.” He spent a moment toying with something out of Harry’s sight, then took a deep breath and met Harry’s eyes. “I hope you’re happy, Dad.”

Harry glanced over his shoulder. Draco was standing behind him in the drawing room where he’d never been, his arms folded, but his face softened as their eyes met. Harry reckoned that Draco had just wanted to make sure that he really _was_ going to tell his children the truth. Harry had hesitated and cowered often enough.

“I am,” Harry said quietly.

*

“And you do not intend to contest this divorce, Mrs. Potter?”

Ginny smiled a little, knowing that the Ministry official was using her married name to try and make her reconsider. He was a portly man who too obviously believed that Harry had been fucking around on the basis of his name and that Ginny ought to be outraged. “No,” Ginny said, and reached out to take Luna’s hand. “It was a mutual decision.”

The official looked down at the way Luna was intertwining her fingers with Ginny’s and promptly coughed, looking away as his face turned almost the color of his robes. “I see,” he muttered. “And you will stay in the house, while Mr. Potter moves into—Malfoy Manor?”

He was still choking on that, and plenty of other people would, too, Ginny thought. She had already told her family, and Ron had made strangling noises for what had felt like years. But she looked over Luna’s shoulder at Harry, standing with Draco’s arm around his shoulders, and knew they were making the right decision.

“Yes,” Ginny said. “It is the home of my children’s childhood, and Luna’s house isn’t as big. But Harry will have plenty of room in the Manor.”

And she and Luna would be able to make love in her own bed. That thought excited Ginny so much that she was glad she was wearing dark robes. Luna shot her a sideways glance and a small, enigmatic smile.

“What of the custody of your children?”

“They can appeal to either of us while they’re at Hogwarts.” Harry’s voice was calm and firm. “We’ll both continue to attend Quidditch matches and the like, as we always have. During the summer, they’ll spend July with me and August with Ginny. Holidays in the middle of the year will also be split evenly. Any child who wants to stay with us for a weekend, a day, or the like in the middle of those times is also welcome.”

“This _is_ amicable,” the Ministry official muttered, as if he had thought they were lying.

Ginny rolled her eyes, and caught Harry’s soft smile. She smiled back. It was wonderful, knowing they could exchange a joke like this, like the best friends they were, but they wouldn’t have to go home together and lie.

The Ministry official didn’t take long after that to announce the separation, and give them the first of many rounds of paperwork to sign. Ginny looped her arm around Luna’s and kept her close while she signed with a flourish.

Draco peered at her over Harry’s shoulder and nodded stiffly. “I’ll take good care of him, Weasley.”

“I know,” Ginny said, and leaned in to hug Harry like a friend would for the first time. Then she turned and walked out of the Ministry.

Luna was beside her, the future ahead, and happiness heated her heart and fluttered in her chest. It was better to have courage after all.

**The End.**


End file.
